The new Pokémon Scarlet and Violet trailer introduced players to three new exciting Pokémon, the fluffy and electric Pawmi, greasy, gasping Smoliv, and the lil’ piggy Lechonk, who is already the subject of adoring fan art and odes of protection. But in this chonk eat chonk world, no one can protect the crusty-eyed pig from my voracious appetite.
Can’t you see? Lechonk is delicious. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet looks like it’s set in a fantasy version of the Iberian Peninsula. Some people have already noted that the new starters Smoliv and Lechonk parallel real Iberian delicacies, green olives and black Iberian pigs. But the Pokémon Company discourages us from devouring Smoliv, which somehow weighs 14.3 pounds (potentially implying that Smoliv has 14 pounds of bones), and notes on its website that the oil Smoliv produces “has a very strong bitter taste, and it is not suitable for consumption.”
I understand completely, The Pokémon Company. You’re telling me I have no choice but to shave off Lechonk’s heavy flesh and sacrifice its snout for the good of the people.
“Um, Ashley?” you say through tears. “But Lechonk is so beautiful! Its oversized nostrils represent the sublime! Its small pink feet…so bare yet able to hold up its round body, representing the delicate strength of all nature!”
Stop crying, child. This is the way it has to be. In the Philippines and Latin America, lechon refers to suckling pig roasted whole on a spit. This is Lechonk’s namesake—this is its destiny. Lechonk wouldn’t know what it is if it wasn’t being slaughtered, deboned, and rotated over fire until its skin turned golden brown. As it waits for death, the wobbly normal type Pokémon spends its time flirting with it, using its aroma veil and gluttony abilities to bravely face dangerous opponents. You see? The young pig revels in its noble fate.
Though, there is one problem. The Pokémon Company writes on its website that while Lechonk has a taste-enhancing diet of fragrant wild grass and berries, its seemingly tubby body is pure muscle “built by constantly walking around in search of food.” Lechonk will never be reduced to succulent, tearable meat like the milk-fed pigs that make lechon, nor could it ever be carefully cut into buttery slices of jamón ibérico. I guess I will just have to wait for Lechonk’s offensive tweets from 2007 to surface so I can kill it anyway.